


The Day Draco Malfoy Disappeared

by smallbrownfrog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Getting Together, HP: EWE, Humor, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-21
Updated: 2013-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:30:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbrownfrog/pseuds/smallbrownfrog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Draco Malfoy disappears, Harry Potter is not looking for him. Or maybe he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Day Draco Malfoy Disappeared

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamerezouille](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamerezouille/gifts).



> **Author's Notes:** I hope you enjoy this story, Lamerezouille. I tried to fit in many of your favorite things. Thank you to the mods for running this fest, and thank you to my beta who went above and beyond the call of duty.

There was nothing special about the day when Draco Malfoy disappeared. It was just one of those wet, grey days that England excels in delivering. The clouds measured out a slow and steady rain. It was a soft rain that fell patiently on Buckingham Palace and Knockturn Alley alike.

It was the sort of day that makes people take up indoor hobbies, like chess or knitting or staring at clocks. Unfortunately, most of those hobbies required sitting and Harry was not good at sitting. As he himself would tell you, he was happiest on his feet, or astride a broom. Stuck indoors, he paced or fretted or snapped at people for no good reason.

So he had volunteered to do one of the errand-boy jobs that none of the other junior aurors wanted to do. Today that meant visiting the usual suspects in Knockturn Alley, with a special emphasis on Borgin and Burkes.

Officially, Harry was simply there to give all the shopkeepers and vendors an updated list of all the parolees whose right to buy some of the dodgier magical items had been limited as a term of their parole. Of course it was a completely toothless document. He couldn’t forbid shopkeepers from selling as they pleased, but it gave him an excuse to visit even the darker shops in a somewhat friendly manner.

Unofficially, he was there to keep his finger on the pulse of the dark economy that thrived just out of reach of the Ministry. It was his job to notice anything out of the ordinary, and also to provide an easy way for the more two-faced shopkeepers to pass on tips.

Harry felt strange, strolling casually in through the front door of Borgin and Burkes. Yet he couldn’t help smiling as he passed the big black cabinet he had hidden in all those years ago. Old Borgin clearly felt the smile was aimed at him and smiled tentatively back. Oh well, it couldn’t hurt to put the greasy old shark at his ease.

Harry threaded his way through the display cases, marvelling at how much craftsmanship had gone into making such morally dubious things. Something about the shop did seem off; but then this was the shop that had hired a young Tom Riddle. “Off” was probably the normal state of affairs.

“It’s good to see you, Mr. Potter,” ventured Mr. Borgin, as Harry finally approached the main counter.

Harry was not nearly enough of a liar to return the compliment, but he settled on a brisk nod as he pulled a parchment out of his satchel. “I’ve just brought round the new list for you to see.” He unrolled the scroll so that it lay open on the counter and watched as Borgin put on a pair of pince-nez to scan the list. The list was depressingly long: at least fifty wizards and witches who were considered too untrustworthy for restricted magic.

Borgin nodded once or twice as he read, but otherwise gave no acknowledgement of what he was reading. Harry suspected that the man knew these names better than any auror did. It might even be a near duplicate of his customer list.

However, just as Harry turned to go, Mr. Borgin gave a little cough and said very quietly, “Mr. Malfoy -- not here you understand, but one hears things. He’s been asking after some very unusual poisons, and spellbooks.”

Harry struggled to keep his face calm, but somehow he managed to get out some more or less coherent thanks and walk steadily out of the shop. The bell jangled loudly behind him as the door closed, but it was not as loud as his thoughts. How had Harry ever believed that someone like Draco Malfoy could feel a shred of remorse? What had possessed him to testify at the little bastard’s trial? He should have let him rot in Azkaban with his father.

Harry lingered outside the shop trying to decide on a course of action. It wasn’t until the rain had thoroughly misted his glasses that Harry realized that Mr. Borgin might have been lying. In fact, he most certainly was. The man had probably been baiting him. Afterall it was public knowledge that Harry had testified at Draco Malfoy’s trial.

Harry felt oddly relieved at the idea that Borgin had been lying about Draco. He wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t that Harry cared about the Malfoys or their son. He had no desire to ever see them again. Yet in spite of this, some part of his mind hoped that Draco had managed to escape the worst of his parents’ influence. Maybe it was simply that Harry had been fooled so many times in his life, and didn’t want to believe that he had been tricked into speaking up for Draco at the trial. Yes, that was probably all it was. Still, he did wish the prat a decent enough life -- as long as he lived it a long, long ways from Harry.

Harry spent the rest of the long afternoon trying to keep his mind on task as he handed out copies of the new list. Then he stopped by George’s joke shop in Diagon Alley.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

As for Draco Malfoy himself, if he had no opinion on his own guilt or innocence, it was only because he was passed out cold and unaware of anything at all. No thoughts moved in the space behind his eyes. For once in his life he was completely innocent of all scheming. Even his dreams had faded away. It was as though one of the hovering rain clouds had replaced his mind with a soft grey fog. He was simply a breath and a heartbeat in the shape of a man.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

When Harry got back to auror headquarters, he could hear upset voices as soon as he opened the big wooden door.

“Bloody hell,” said Gawain Robard’s gravelly voice.

“I told you we should have picked him up last night.” 

“Fucking bastard’s slipped his trace spell.” 

A small crowd was clustered on the far side of the room, jammed into the narrow space between the warren of cubicles and the wall; and even more people were standing in the nearest cubicles, leaning over the dividers.

Harry saw Ron and mouthed, “What happened?”

Ron just pointed at the same wall the other people were staring at. Harry looked at the wall too -- or as much of it as he could see through the crowd -- but all he saw was the Caseload Clock that had always been there. It dominated the wall with its beautiful brass workings and gears.

Harry stepped up to take a closer look. At first he saw nothing wrong. As usual, the clock bristled with sharp metal hands the way a hedgehog bristles with quills; and each hand was clearly labelled with the name of someone being tracked by the aurors.

First, there was a thick cluster of overlapping hands all pointing to Azkaban. Harry smiled to see that Fenrir’s name was still among them. On bad days he visited the clock to remind himself why being an auror mattered. Fenrir’s arrow always made him feel better.

Then there was a smaller cluster of hands directed at “probation hostel.” These made Harry feel better in a different way. It was good to know that there were people who could change for the better.

Still, there was nothing strange about any of these clock hands, so Harry kept looking. Five hands pointed to “current surveillance.” One hand pointed to “protective custody.” Four hands said “awaiting permission to track.”

However, one hand….

One hand pointed nowhere at all. The silver hand labelled Draco Malfoy sagged brokenly off the clock in a crumpled mess.

Staring at the bent and twisted hand, Harry felt a headache coming on. He had been arguing steadily against bringing Malfoy in for questioning. The man had not actually broken any laws yet. Harry had been telling everyone that the little hints that Malfoy might possibly be about to maybe break a law someday were not nearly enough. They needed a crime or the clear plan for a crime to justify a new interrogation.

Harry had said these things over and over. Everyone knew how he felt. But clearly he had been wrong.

And that tip from Borgin. He should have reported it. If he had reported it immediately, Malfoy might be in custody now. Why hadn’t he reported it? What was wrong with him?

Gawain clapped his hands together and there was sudden silence. “It looks like Mr. Malfoy has broken his trace spell. We’ll be handling this on an emergency basis until further notice. That means all vacation and leave time will be suspended for the duration. John, what can you tell us about the tracking spell?”

John Dawlish said, “It’s the standard monitoring spell that’s built into the Caseload Clock, basically just a modified family clock type of arrangement. It’s simple. It’s foolproof. Nobody’s broken this spell in the four years we’ve been using it. Not if it’s attached correctly, and this one was. It weaves itself right into a person’s magic, in who they are as a wizard.”

Gawain nodded, as though this was familiar information. “I think we all know this is serious. I’ll be sending a team over to Malfoy Manor, but first I want to hear anything that any of you think might be relevant. Hell, I want the non-relevant stuff too. Anything at all that didn’t make it into your reports.”

The allegations poured in. Malfoy had been spotted lurking in Knockturn doorways, drinking at the Hogshead with dark figures, enquiring after nasty things best not enquired after. He was rumored to be a vampire, a werewolf, cursed, or possibly all three.

Finally Gawain cut them off. “I think we can take it as a given that Malfoy’s been doing a lot worse than buying a few herbs and spices. I’ll be heading a raid on the manor as soon as we can assemble a team.”

Harry and Ron both tried to volunteer for the mission, but Gawain turned them down in favor of several aurors who had more experience with penetrating hostile wards.

That night, Harry went out with Ron and drank himself legless. Harry hadn’t planned it that way, but the more he drank the more he talked, and the more he talked the more he drank. As for Ron, he matched him drink for drink. It was a long, boozy conversation and later Harry only remembered parts of it.

He did remember telling Ron that he should have known what was going to happen. Should have noticed the signals. Should have taken it all more seriously.

Harry couldn’t help feeling personally betrayed. He had spoken up for Malfoy to give him a chance, a chance to escape the patterns he had been trapped in. Now it seemed that Malfoy had thrown that gift in Harry’s face, and had gone back to his scheming past. “Once a weasel, always a weasel,” Harry muttered into his firewhiskey.

“No, that’d be a ferret,” deadpanned Ron, and Harry couldn’t help laughing even though he felt that the joke was on him.

“It’s not your fault, mate,” said Ron. “You did the right thing by testifying. It’s just that it was only a matter of time before he showed his true colors. Man’s a Slytherin through and through.”

“I guess I should have seen it coming,” said Harry. “I just -- I really bought the whole redemption act. He seemed so sincere. I mean, he cried on the stand.”

The next morning the _Daily Prophet_ featured a very unflattering picture of Harry staring blearily into the camera, before putting his head in his hands. It had clearly been taken in the Leaky Cauldron. The headline screamed:

> ### PLASTERED POTTER!
> 
> Late last night, the infamous Auror Who Lived was spotted pouring out his romantic woes to a mate at the Leaky Cauldron. A source close to the unhappy Auror says, “Poor Harry just can’t seem to get it right with ladies. Ever since he lost Ginny he’s not been quite right.”

Harry could only laugh. Romance! As though he had time for something like that. Where did reporters come up with these things? Still, it bothered him. Tom had never allowed cameras in the Leaky, but it looked like the new owner was a little cozier with the press. Clearly they were going to have to find a new pub to drink in.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

When Draco finally woke, he found himself sprawled out on something hard and unforgiving. His head hurt; his arm hurt; and he didn’t want to open his eyes. Clearly the magic ritual had gone wrong yet again. He had misbrewed the potion or miscast the spells. Opening his eyes would just mean he would see the latest disaster. Then he would have to pick himself up and start over again. He was so tired of starting over. Sometimes he wasn’t sure why he had ever thought he could remove the dark mark. 

Slowly and painfully, Draco turned his head to take stock of his surroundings. It felt like his skull had lost an argument with a bludger and the rest of his body felt nearly as bad.

What he saw did not make him feel better. The entire manor had vanished. There was no furniture, no bookshelves, no floor, no walls. There was only Draco poised impossibly in midair. Yet even as his eyes told him there was nothing there, he could also feel the hard plane of the floor where it invisibly touched his body.

His various senses were at war. His hands insisted that they were touching the Persian rug that his great-great-grandfather had bought for this room. His cheek was telling him that it would soon be sporting a bruise from the hard floor under this rug. Yet his eyes showed him clearly that he was resting on absolutely nothing. Draco began to wonder if he was hallucinating.

When Draco finally looked straight down he felt even worse. Under his body was a long, long drop filled with nothing but empty air, and then far below, too far below for comfort, was a weedy expanse of meadow. He was clearly going to fall. His stomach gave a lurch and he felt his breakfast trying to burn its way up his throat. Draco closed his eyes and concentrated on not sicking up.

Then, when he felt the attack of nausea pass, Draco opened his eyes. It was no better a second time. As soon as he could see the absolute absence of any floor beneath him, he could feel his body rebel.

Draco closed his eyes and held still while he struggled to pull his thoughts together. There had to be an explanation. He prided himself on his knowledge of magic, but this was unlike any magic he had ever heard of. Frowning, he tried a visibility spell. Nothing seemed to happen. He called a spell book to him, but no book came. A cloud passed over the sun, and Draco cast a lumos without thinking. Once again, nothing happened.

This wasn’t at all the result he had expected, and now he’d have to find a way to undo it. Still, any spell that could be done could be undone. Draco was nothing if not persistent.

The immediate problem would be how to navigate an invisible mansion, but first Draco needed to confirm his failure. Sighing, he tugged at his sleeve to show himself that the mark was still there. He was used to the mark by now, but that didn’t make it easier to look at.

His arm was pale and unmarked like a new fall of snow. At first Draco thought he hadn’t lifted the sleeve quite far enough. Shaking with an emotion too strong to name, Draco fumbled his sleeve up higher. When he finally got the sleeve rolled up all the way, his arm was still unmarked. He’d done it. The spell had worked.

Then Draco understood the meaning of the invisible manor. He was seeing what muggles saw when they looked at the manor. He had unrooted his magic along with the mark.

Draco couldn’t help it. He started laughing. Short, sharp laughs that sounded almost like sobs. It had been so long since he’d laughed. He had almost believed that he had forgotten how.

Finally, done gasping, Draco pulled himself together. He felt an impossible lightness all through his body. It was as though gravity had released him. It felt like freedom. It felt like joy. It felt like he could do anything. Without the mark, he could blend into almost any wizarding town in the world. He could start over without anybody looking at him like he was an extension of the Dark Lord.

Draco had done nothing but plan for this day. For a year he had had a travel bag ready and packed for the moment when he finally succeeded at removing the mark. For a year he had kept an emergency supply kit in his bedroom safe. He wasn’t stupid. He had known there was a good chance that the mark was so deeply rooted in his own magic that removing one might remove the other. So he’d been prepared. He had modified the safe to open with a manual non-magical combination, and the safe held not just galleons and a portkey, but also a bundle of strangely printed muggle money.

Truly, Draco had done nothing but plan for this day. Yet now that the moment had arrived, Draco felt as if he had done no planning at all. His travel bag was neatly packed in his room, but he had no idea how long it might take to travel up two flights of invisible stairs to reach it. As for the money in the safe, it might as well have been on the moon, locked behind a dial he could no longer see.

It was all quite impossible. He couldn’t even look down for too long without wanting to sick up. So then, why did he keep grinning? Why did nothing seem quite real? Draco neither knew nor cared. He just moved into action. Everything had the same air of adrenaline-fueled unreality that permeated a quidditch game just before he seized the snitch.

It was his muscles more than his mind that got him up to begin feeling his way through the unreal library. Walking at a slow pace almost worked, as long he kept his eyes off the nonexistent floor. However, the furniture was all too real when he walked into it. He was going to have bruises tomorrow.

Finally Draco settled on closing his eyes and crawling inch by slow inch across the floor that wasn’t there. He fumbled his way past what must be the green silk sofa and managed to sit down. He needed to get out of here fast, but he also needed money to be able to get anywhere. He would have to grab anything valuable that he could carry with him. Anything, that is, that he could find quickly and by touch.

Even while he was thinking he kept moving, hands patting the sofa until he found a small cushion with a zippered side. It was the work of only a moment to pull out the stuffing and produce an odd but serviceable bag.

It was surprisingly hard to find things by touch, but he managed to find a letter opener and a writing box on the library desk. He took a chance on a miniature book that he found in a drawer. Best of all was finding great-grandmother Irma’s gold snuff box, sitting on the mantel. When he shook it, it rattled with a sound like odd bits of metal. He hoped it was jewelry.

Getting out of the house was a frantic business of stumbling down stairways as fast as he could. Then there were several panicked minutes before he found a door leading out.

Once Draco had made his way to the nearest lane, he stood there uncertainly. He had planned to have money on him and muggle clothing. Yet here he was. And Merlin only knew how much time he would have before somebody noticed something had happened. He needed to be gone as quickly as possible.

As he dithered about what to do next, a beat-up muggle van pulled around the corner and slowed to a stop in front of him. There was no way to hide his wizard’s robe or lack of money. Merlin only knew what they would make of it. Could he pretend to be a bit mad?

As it was, the muggles took the matter right out of his hands. The van slowed to a stop and a long haired muggle leaned out the window. “Blessed be! You must be going to Stonehenge for the solstice festival. Care for a lift?”

Draco couldn’t stop grinning as he climbed in.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

It was a warm summer afternoon when Harry next thought about any of the Malfoys. Harry hadn’t thought about them since the night the manor was searched -- well, hadn’t thought about them much -- because there was no point to it.

All the evidence at the Malfoys’ manor had pointed to violence and a hasty exit. As for Draco Malfoy himself, it was as though the earth had swallowed him whole. There hadn’t been the slightest sign of his magic use over the past month. Whether Malfoy had been killed or merely fled the country, he was clearly not in England.

In any case, Malfoy’s disappearance had given Harry the chance to close that chapter of his life and move on. It had been a confusing chapter that he was glad to close.

So Harry wasn’t thrilled when Malfoy’s name popped up like a mushroom. It was during one of those never-ending department meetings that Harry was no good at paying attention to. So when he heard the name Malfoy, Harry had no idea what was being discussed.

At first he thought Gawain was talking about Lucius Malfoy, which made no sense, since he was still enjoying an extended vacation courtesy of Azkaban prison; and it certainly wasn’t Narcissa, who had left the country at the first opportunity.

Finally, Harry said, “Erm, could you say that bit again? About Malfoy?”

Ron gave Harry a little kick under the table, to let him know that he was perfectly aware that Harry had been woolgathering. However, Gawain just nodded as though this was a perfectly reasonable request and re-explained that they had finally found traces of Draco Malfoy.

The oddest was that a muggle had been spotted wearing Malfoy’s dress robes. When questioned, the muggle had insisted that he had gotten them “from this brilliant shaman” who had danced at some sort of muggle solstice festival. Odder still, the muggle didn’t seem to see anything strange about this.

Less odd was the discovery of an heirloom snuff box in a muggle antique shop. The inscription etched into one side made it clear that it had belonged to the Malfoy family. However they were only able to trace it back as far as a muggle jeweler, who said he had bought it from an immigrant man with hair so blond it was almost white.

It was possible that Draco Malfoy himself had sold the snuff box, but incredibly unlikely. Why would a man who owned vaults of gold go selling things to muggles? To believe that Malfoy had been flitting around London selling trinkets, one would have to ignore the still-broken trace, the violent damage to the manor property, and the fact that his magic had not been seen or used in any detectable manner in two months. A more likely scenario was that the Malfoy heir had been killed or fled the country.

Harry found himself volunteering to help look for further clues, but Gawain gently said no. “You’re a good man Harry, but we need someone with less of a connection to Mr. Malfoy, someone who can view the clues from a distance. In fact, I don’t want you to touch this case. I don’t want to hear the words ‘Draco’ or ‘Malfoy’ leave your lips for the rest of this year. Am I clear?”

“But Sir --”

“Harry, that was an order. You’re not his solicitor, you’re not his family, and you’re surely not his nanny. Let it go.”

Harry shut up. Harry tried to let it go. He hated the way everybody else seemed to think he was defending Malfoy. It made no sense. How could he be defending the slippery bastard, when he himself had no idea how to feel about him. He wasn’t sure whether he saw Malfoy as a victim or as a suspect, or simply as an enigma so frustrating that he wanted to shake the man until the truth rattled out of him.

Publicly, Harry agreed that Malfoy had died or fled the country. Privately, he found himself taking long walks in the area of a jeweller’s shop in Whitechapel. He didn’t say he was looking for Malfoy. He didn’t tell himself he was looking for Malfoy. He didn’t tell himself anything. He just walked.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

Draco would have laughed if he had known how much consternation and confusion his cast-off robe and snuff box had caused. As it was, he had no idea he had left a trail. He hadn’t been thinking beyond the immediate need to get away, change his clothes, and get money.

The first thing he did after his arrival in London was to sell a few of the things from the manor. Some of the festival people had recommended a little jewelry shop that had a service in back, so he went there.

Draco had never been to a muggle jewelry shop, so he wasn’t quite sure how the process would work. Still, he did his best. He did know how to act like a rich man, a man who should possess objects like this. Surely that was the same anywhere.

His father had once told him years ago, when he had got a piece of etiquette wrong at a party, “Just act like whatever you’ve done is the correct thing. If you truly act that way, it will be the correct thing. It’s only weak people with no power who constantly look to everyone else for assurances that they are doing the right thing.”

And if his father had known anything, it had been power. So Draco squared his shoulders and pretended he was going to Borgin and Burkes, back in the days when all the power was on his side.

He was amused to see that the shop actually was a bit like Borgin and Burkes. It had that same sense of organized clutter and the same sort of man behind the counter. This man was friendlier looking than Borgin, with a wide, open grin. But on second look, the grin had an overly practiced look. It was probably as fake as the gaudy jewelry in the cheap display by the door.

Draco felt at home here. He’d played this game before, and just knowing that the other person was also acting made it all easier.

The old man was slow and thorough as he checked each item. Draco wasn’t really sure what made them worth more or less, other than the basic materials. However, he wasn’t worried. He was sure the antiques were well crafted, for the simple reason that everything in the manor was well crafted. Of course they weren’t antiques to him, just family odds and ends, but that was what the muggle called them.

Draco knew that the first rule of lying was to use the truth as much as possible, so when the muggle asked him where he got them, he didn’t miss a beat. He looked sad, and said, “They were mother’s.”

“Interesting work. So what country are you from then?”

He didn’t know what made him say, “It doesn’t exist anymore,” but he supposed it was true. The wizarding world that he had grown up in, with its pure-blood traditions, was long gone.

The old man just nodded at this. “I hear that a lot,” he said. “Plenty of refugees from countries that don’t exist anymore.”

 _Refugee_ wasn’t a word Draco had thought to apply to himself, but he could that see it made the shop man happier, so he didn’t argue.

Draco left with 200 pounds worth of strange paper currency tucked into his pocket. He was fairly sure that the jeweled letter opener had been worth more than that, but he was also sure that it was the most cash he could get there.

That night and for the next week, he slept in an abandoned warehouse with a reincarnated god from Stonehenge. Draco didn’t believe the muggle was actually a god. Surely a god would wash more regularly. However, since the muggle had a key to the warehouse door and was willing to share what he knew about the neighborhood, Draco was willing to be a fellow god for a little while.

In addition to his temporary godhood, Draco also tried on the idea that he actually was a refugee: but no, he knew he wasn’t anything that pitiful. However, as uncomfortable as the idea was, it did make it easier for him, since it gave others a story to tell themselves about him. Even better, it gave them a reason not to poke too vigorously into his past.

At the end of the week, Draco found a cash-in-hand job washing dishes at a restaurant. It wasn’t what he expected. It turned out to be hard physical work and his back hurt from lifting the trays of heavy dishes. Worst of all, the steam made his hair go limp. However the restaurant was also full of wonders.

It was at the restaurant that Draco discovered indoor ice. The muggles put it in sugar drinks. It delighted and puzzled him. Surely if one wanted a cold drink one could just cool the entire thing? Why put little ice rocks into the drink?

Draco also discovered mangos, and even better, he discovered curry. He learned that he could buy an NI number from the man with tattoos who worked the flower stand across the street. And best of all he discovered bikes. Bikes were broomsticks that flew without ever needing to leave the ground.

Draco had never been so happy. Nobody treated him like a criminal. Nobody threatened to turn him into a werewolf. His boss didn’t even offer to crucio him when he broke a dish.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

It was Harry’s explorations with Ron that introduced him to the restaurants on Brick Alley. They had started out simply looking for a place to get away from the _Prophet_ ’s reporters, but that was before they discovered the joys of muggle cuisine, and the siren call of chicken tikka masala. They tried innumerable places and innumerable styles, but Harry’s favorite restaurant served a version of the rich reddish-orange sauce that was so thick that he swore he could stand his wand in it.

Gradually other aurors began to join them for the occasional night out. Harry was glad of the camaraderie, and he knew they all needed as much respite as they could get. However, most days were spent on the road tracking and hunting their prey, a game of cat and mouse that never ended.

Autumn turned into winter and winter faded into spring. By now Harry had a permanent cubicle in the crowded warren of auror desks. He was never sure just what he was supposed to do with it, but generally he occupied it as little as possible.

Slowly Harry collected more scars. He lost the tip of a finger and learned to use his wand left handed. He developed a permanent callous on the inside of his wrist where his wand sheath rubbed. He was becoming a formidable dueler. He knew numerous dark spells by their scent alone.

Harry lost count of the times he had to cancel Sunday dinner with the Weasleys. There never seemed to be an end to the dark magic. Harry told his friends that he suspected that dark wizards took a special joy in destroying weekends.

Ron sighed. “I know what you mean mate. It’s like we’ve signed up for a fabulous treasure hunt, only all the prizes are awful.”

“It’s not that bad,” said John. “If you win you get a Lestrange of your very own to haul back to Azkaban.”

Off and on, in in-between moments, Harry wondered what had happened to Draco Malfoy: what had finally turned him back to the dark, and whether it had killed him. He couldn’t understand why anyone would follow that dark call. It seemed like a miserable existence that no one would want. Every day he saw dark wizards who trusted no one, who would sell a friend to the nearest auror as soon as they were frightened and cornered in an interrogation room. Why would anyone join their ranks?

Harry still took his pointless walks in Whitechapel, but by now that was simply a habit.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

Draco loved his tiny little flat. The entire bedsit was smaller than his bedroom closet back at the manor. Yet he had never had so much blessed space all to himself. There was no one to evaluate his performance. No one to lurk around corners. No one to test him. No one to make sure he lived up to the name of Malfoy. Nobody to judge whether he was capable of redemption. It was entirely his.

He didn’t even mind the sound of his ridiculous teen neighbors when they staggered into the neighboring flat at 5 am. They were often so drunk that they thought walking slowly was the same as walking quietly. It probably should have annoyed him, but their drunken stupidity just amused him as he dressed for his job as a bicycle courier. How could he resent them when he was headed for a day of glorious biking. And now getting paid for it.

He knew that later in the day the silly teens would emerge groggily from their shared room, clutching their heads as they headed for the hallway loo. Meanwhile he would be clear-headed and alert. Pedaling hard down the pavement made him feel awake and alive as the world narrowed down to the rush of air around his body and the path of his bike. He loved weaving in and out of traffic like a mad thing. Dodging cars without being able to fly below or above them was a level of difficulty beyond mere broom quidditch.

Of course it hadn’t been so fun at first. On his first day as a bike courier he had got so lost that he found himself getting directions from tourists. (And yes, those directions had been wrong.) He had even had trouble understanding the dispatcher over the radio. He was convinced that the evil radio machine had intentionally coated all the man’s words with static, like a muggle version of muffliato.

However, Draco had stuck with it, and now he wouldn’t give up the job for anything. How could he not love it? It was an invitation to a perpetual quidditch match that was waiting just for him. What’s more, it gave him an intimate view of the workings of the city. Draco discovered that he adored London in all its crazy glory. It was full of life and contradiction. Who would have guessed that muggles could have built such a thing?

Late at night Draco could see the lights of the skyscrapers across town. There was a grand sense of theater in so many of the muggle buildings. The bright lights reminded him of the faeries that Flitwick had decorated the school with. Only these had a strange inhuman precision. They were geometries of pure light. Straight and lovely as an avada kedavra, they filled him with awe.

Electric lights in general were a mystery and a wonder to him. When he first got his flat, he had got down on his knees and looked carefully into each of the electric wall sockets in his flat. They were dark inside, with no visible light. So where did the light come from? He had asked a muggle how electricity worked, and it was clear from the person’s vague answer that they were as ignorant as Draco was.

Draco wasn’t about to accept this level of ignorance, so he reasoned it out. One plugged a snakey little cord into an outlet and different things came out: light, or cool air from a fan, or sound from a radio. Surely, all those things weren’t contained in the outlet? Draco pondered the idea that maybe the outlet was a type of floo, porting different things into his flat as needed. It was both an amazing idea and a little disturbing. Could other things come through? Unwanted things?

Later he got his answer when he found plastic covers that were made to snap in place over a wall socket. The packet said they were for infant safety. He bought five and carefully covered each wall socket in his flat. He felt cheerful in his progress at understanding the muggle world.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

By now Harry was a common sight in Knockturn Alley. All the aurors were. It was the strangest experience. Peddlers enquired solicitously after his health. Hags flirted with him before going back to selling things that shouldn’t exist.

He didn't really understand what drove the Knockturn vendors: they chatted him up as blithely as Hufflepuffs, then turned back to selling deadly poisons and cursed artifacts as soon as he left. It was an easygoing sort of lie that left him equal parts befuddled and amused.

It was a simple and obvious fact that he meant no good to their kind. No one in Knockturn Alley could possibly look on the aurors with love. Sometimes he thought that they were all so busy trying to out-plot and outmaneuver each other, in such an intricate game of deception, that he was as much their friend as their fellow shopkeepers were.

Yet even as their motives puzzled him, Harry was learning how the game was played. By now he had come to understand that when a dark, or at least questionable, wizard gave him a tip on somebody, it meant that the person they were selling out was on the way down. None of these nasty wizards made reports on anyone with any real power. The only people whose confidences they betrayed were the wizards or witches who were about to lose everything. 

This trend had held true from the very first tip he had ever gotten, when Borgin had warned him about Malfoy. How the denizens of Knockturn Alley sensed these things was a mystery. All Harry knew was that shopkeepers routinely sold out confederates just at the point where it no longer mattered: the day before the aurors made an arrest they would suddenly get three reports of illegal activities by the unfortunate wizard.

How could they possibly know so precisely when was the best time to sell someone out with maximum effectiveness? When it would give them the benefit of goodwill from an auror without any risk of reprisal?

As he asked John Dawlish, “How do you ever figure it all out? It’s like a nest of crazy spiders spinning webs! I just can’t sort out all these bloody plots and plans. Don’t they ever fucking stop?”

“That’d be Slytherins for you,” said Ron, as he took another blissful bite of his curry.

However, John seemed to understand the real question Harry was asking. “Harry, you don’t have to fight a schemer with schemes. “ When Harry looked unconvinced, John said, “Look. Think of it this way. You don’t have to fight fire with fire. You can also fight fire with water.”

“Or sand,” said Ron through his next bite.

“Or sand,” agreed John. “The point is you don’t have to become what they are. You have your own strengths. Keep them.”

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

London was a big city. More than seven million souls called it home. The city contained vast worlds that never met. The Sloan Rangers bouncing between Kings Road and the White Horse Pub might never speak to someone who lived on the Heygate Estate. The wizards who shopped in Diagon Alley and ate lunch at the Ministry cafeteria often knew almost nothing about the muggles living cheek by jowl with them.

Yet relying on this anonymity was a slippery business. London was also a small world. At any moment one might cross paths with anybody. One probably wouldn’t, at least not today, but the possibility was there.

So it was really no surprise that Harry and Draco should cross paths. In the end it was Draco’s love of curry that nearly did him in. He was grabbing takeaway over in Curry Mile when he saw four aurors eating at one of the corner tables.

It took everything he had not to run. He paid for his supper, then got on his bike and rode as though his life depended on it. When he arrived home he felt nauseated, and put his food away without touching it.

That night Draco dreamed of the dark mark. He dreamed that he was back in his father’s house. When he was little, his father used to take him by the hands and whirl him round until his head spun. Afterwards the whole room would spin and he’d lie down to watch it with dizzy glee.

Only in the dream it suddenly wasn’t his father. He was being held by the Dark Lord’s icy hands and spun round and round in a terrifying parody of a ride. Everything was speed and desperation, with no time for thought. Then the Dark Lord smiled and let go. Draco flew.

He woke up shaking and in tears. He was going to die. There was no way out. It had been so long since he had had a choice, a real choice. He was never going to get away.

It was several minutes before he understood that he was in his flat and that it had been a dream. It was several more minutes before he could stop crying.

Those childhood years seemed so long ago, when he’d wanted to hurtle through the sky. When he had thought magic could make him invincible. Now he would give anything for solid ground, for firmness under his feet. Flight and magic were the last things he wanted.

It was magic that had marked his arm, magic that had marked his life. It was magic that had made him hungry for glory and then had taken it all away. He sat in the little bed and remembered.

Remembered how the trials had gone on and on. How he no longer knew what he’d said. Veritaserum had unreeled the words like a spool of thread, and he had let the words go slipping out. None of it had had anything to do with him. It had felt as though the war had never ended. Some of the aurors were gentle. Some were rough. It didn’t matter. The words spilled out without him. It was a conversation between the aurors and the words and had nothing to do with him.

Later, he’d been told that he had collapsed during part of the trial. He didn’t remember. It all had happened to somebody else.

He never wanted to see that world again.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

Harry was hot on the trail of a very nasty artifact smuggler. He was tailing the wizard through muggle London and was just waiting for a chance to immobilize him without hurting any muggles.

Unfortunately, the wizard was not being cooperative. He seemed to be sticking to the most crowded places he could find, and now he had plunged into the throng at Whitechapel Market. There was no way Harry would take him down in the middle of the market, when a little patience would be sure to give him a better option.

That was when he heard the voice. ”You call this thing a ripe mango? Have you even looked at it?” Even without seeing him, Harry could tell the man was sneering. Harry would know that voice anywhere. Then he did see him. It was Malfoy. It couldn’t be anyone else with that angular face and impossibly pale hair.

Harry walked up to him, intending to demand an explanation. However, Malfoy just held up his hands and said, “All right, you’ve caught me. Care to take me some place that has decent mangos?”

So they had lunch together. Of all the strange days in Harry’s life, this had to be the strangest. Malfoy was acting as though they were simply friendly acquaintances. As for Harry, he knew he should report Malfoy, but hadn’t he been ordered not to utter the man’s name?

Wondering what on earth was making him do such a mad thing, Harry decided to be honest with Malfoy. So he just said it: he wasn’t hunting him, he’d been officially pulled from the case, but just for curiosity’s sake…

Draco Malfoy must have been as mad as Harry, because he gave Harry an answer. Harry was sure it wasn’t the entire answer, but it was more than he had expected.

Draco was surprisingly entertaining, although Harry wasn’t quite sure why. Surely he was still the same pointy-faced git he’d ever been. Yet Harry found himself watching him, noting the cut of his trousers, or the way his collarbone edged into sight when he leaned forward.

Harry pondered what Draco had told him. “I just… I still can’t wrap my mind around Draco Malfoy in a squat. A warehouse no less! No wonder I couldn’t find you then. Your family would go completely spare if they knew.”

Draco just snorted and looped more pasta around his fork. “Does my family really strike you as the sort of people who believe in muggle ownership? Actually, the strange thing is that I wasn’t breaking any laws. It’s entirely legal to stay in an empty property. Maybe not entirely respectable, but it’s been awhile since anybody called me that. Also, when you get right down to it, the manor is a squat from the muggle point of view. I’m sure father doesn’t have any ownership papers that would stand up in muggle court.”

Draco paused for a second, looking thoughtful. “I’m not sure if it’s even possible to own the manor under muggle laws. After all they don’t believe it exists.”

“Does that bother you?”

“I’m rather coming to enjoy the idea that it doesn’t exist. Big useless pile of lumber.”

Draco sneered at his unfortunate pasta as though it was the house in question, and Harry thought he had never been so glad the sneer was not directed at him.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

Draco found that he didn’t mind Harry quite so much any more. They sampled restaurants all across London, but most often they ate in a tiny little Bengali restaurant near Draco’s flat. They never really made plans, they just ran into each other and did things together. Harry hadn’t ever been to his flat, but then Draco wasn’t in the habit of inviting people up there. He wasn’t sure where he would even put a second person in the tiny space.

Late in the autumn Draco finally visited Harry’s neighborhood. They were only there because Harry had said he wanted to go to his favorite pizza place. So they tried slices of sweet corn and chicken pizza on Harry’s recommendation. Draco wasn’t sure if he liked pizza or not, but he definitely enjoyed teasing Harry when he realized that the man’s favorite restaurant was part of a restaurant chain.

As they left, Harry mentioned that he had forgotten something at Grimmauld Place, and asked Draco if he would mind if they stopped to get it. Draco wasn’t sure he wanted to go in. It was a part of the world he had left behind. Still, there was no way he would admit that in front of Harry.

It wasn’t at all what he had expected. Harry had gutted much of the house and it looked oddly -- well, it looked oddly muggle. Even better, Draco discovered that he couldn’t hear any of the portraits talking. He took great joy in telling that old bat, Black, in the front entrance that he had never liked her when she was alive. Then he practiced looking innocent when Harry winced and covered his ears.

Draco half expected Harry to make a move while they were there, but nothing happened. Maybe he had misunderstood Harry’s interest in him. Or maybe he had teased Harry a little too hard.

That night Draco stared into the mirror for a long time trying to see something different about himself, something that would change him into someone who wanted to spend time with Harry bloody Potter. It felt a little strange to stare at himself for so long. He didn’t spend much time looking in the mirror these days. It wasn’t that he had quit caring about his looks. He did. It was that his looks were no longer the only thing he had control of.

Whatever had changed, he couldn’t find it in the mirror. He saw the same grey eyes that had always looked back at him. His face had the same angular set of lines it had always had. When he was younger that face used to bother him, make him wish he had grown up in a family of square chins and broad faces. But now he rather liked what he saw in the mirror.

Even his hair was the same short cut he had worn for years. Really, his hair had been his first step into his own identity. He’d known for years that he was expected to grow a long que like his father’s, and had kept right on cropping it short. For years it had been the only act of rebellion he had been allowed. The only thing he had control over.

Now it was just hair.

Well, maybe not just hair. It was damn good-looking hair.

~~ * ~~ * ~~ * ~~

Harry truly didn’t expect it. One minute he and Draco were leaving their usual restaurant and the next minute they were surrounded by a tight cordon of aurors. Draco looked wildly between the other aurors and Harry. For a fleeting instant Draco looked frightened and betrayed. Then he sneered and said, “So lovely to see you all again.” Harry felt a hand on his arm and had a quick glimpse of Gawain’s grim face before he felt the sickening pull of a portkey.

Harry landed with a bone-jarring thump. When he looked up he saw the stone walls of a Ministry interrogation room. Three of his fellow aurors had their wands trained on him. Three others were focused on Draco. Kingsley himself was one of the three guarding Draco.

It was Gawain who spoke first. “Draco Malfoy, you are hereby under arrest and are being detained under the authority of the Ministry of Magic. We have some questions for you. It is your choice whether you answer them the easy way or the hard way, but you will not be leaving this room until you have answered them.”

Draco looked almost bored, though Harry noticed that his hands were shaking very slightly. “Oh please, I know this game. You’re going to do a Mutt and Jeff, good cop bad cop game. Let’s see, Potter is the nice friendly auror who will befriend me, and the rest of you are the big bad aurors he will protect me against. Have I got it right?”

Harry was surprised at how much it hurt him to hear Draco’s suspicion. Draco was right that Harry was ready to protect him, but there was nothing false in it. He wanted to attack, wand blazing. Yet he knew he was outnumbered in every way. So he stood and thought. It took everything he had not to step between Draco and Kingsley, to just stand there as though this was a normal day at work. 

Finally Harry made a decision and spoke up. “I want to stay while you question him. I also want to lodge a formal complaint. This man is not a wizard and is not under your jurisdiction.”

Gawain gave Harry a concerned look. “Harry, we understand he did something to you. We’ll get you out of this.”

Kingsley just sighed and said, “Of course you can stay, Harry. We’ll discuss the complaint afterwards.”

First they tried veritaserum. Kingsley opened the questioning by asking whether Draco had used dark magic forbidden to parolees. Draco rolled his eyes. “Of course I did, Shacklebolt. I sacrificed seven babies under a full moon. Is that what you want to hear? Or maybe it was eight. We evil overlords lose track sometimes. I’m also a vampire, a mummy, and a hobgoblin.”

The room exploded in a flurry of confusion before all present agreed that veritaserum clearly no longer worked on the prisoner. After a hushed consultation the aurors decided to keep questioning him anyway.

The questions went on and on. Aurors cycled in and out of the room, but there were always several people questioning Draco. 

After the first burst of defiance, Draco seemed to be answering mechanically. He told them over and over that he had simply wanted to remove the mark. Harry felt himself slumping with tiredness, and he missed some of the questioning. When he woke up, Gawain and Kingsley were back in the room.

“Once more, what ritual did you use?” asked Gawain. “And please remember that we’ve analysed the potions residue on your equipment. So lying will be a waste of all our time.”

“I don’t know,” said Draco. “I made sure of that. There’s some kind of obliviate woven right into the magic itself.”

Kingsley looked at Draco kindly. “You were afraid you’d change your mind, afraid you’d want the darkness back and find a way to undo the ritual.” He said it so gently that it almost sounded like he was comforting Draco.

“No,” said Draco. “I was afraid of what you would do. You or people like you. When you decided to force me back into my old life.”

The room was quiet for a little bit after that. Finally they put him in a cell for the night and made Harry leave the interrogation area. It wasn’t until nearly two hours later that Harry saw a memo mentioning the release of the prisoner. He nearly splinched himself in his haste to apparate to Whitechapel. 

Then he ran all the way up the stairs and pounded on Draco’s door.

“Draco! Draco! Just listen to me. I wasn’t part of it. Look, I’ve brought veritaserum. I’ll take it in front of you. Just listen to me.”

“Spare me the Gryffindor dramatics, Potter. It was obvious from the stupid look on your face that you didn’t expect that nice little tea party.” Draco smiled nastily and moved to close the door. “You know the look I’m talking about. I’m sure you’ve seen it in the mirror.”

“I think I deserved that,” said Harry in a small voice.

“I…. Oh, look,” said Draco, “Maybe you didn’t deserve all of that. Just let me know what in Merlin’s name you think you’ve been doing in my life. And what the bloody hell did Gawain Robards mean when he said I’d done something to you?”

“You are going to think I’m an idiot. I just couldn’t get you out of my mind when you disappeared. I kept thinking about you. Dumb things like how you sat on your broom in quidditch. And erm, your hair.”

Draco stared at him, before bursting into laughter. “You mean you don’t even know why you stalked me?”

“Merlin, it sounds stupid when you put it like that. I just -- it, it kept bothering me. Not knowing where you were. Oh bollocks. I can’t explain. I’m sorry. I should go now.”

Draco was positively grinning now. “You can go if you want to,” he said, “but only if you promise to come back. I rather like having you.”

“I can come back?”

“I’d like that,” said Draco. “Better yet, why don’t you stay? I think I can show you exactly what you were looking for.” Then he pulled at Harry so hard that they both overbalanced and fell onto the cramped little bed.

If there was no conversation for a long time after that, neither of them seemed to need it.

**Author's Note:**

> You can leave a comment here or [on Livejournal.](http://hd-erised.livejournal.com/13761.html)


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